Right Back to This
by Iellix
Summary: Abby loves him, but has no idea how to express it. So she does the opposite, and does what she can to push him away because she knows better how to deal with hate than with love.


I should be finishing my 'Alice' fic, but I had to write some other stuff because the stories were really bugging me. This story was inspired by a (perhaps slightly exaggerated) interpretation of the unhealthy side of the Connor-and-Abby dynamic as well as the song 'Please Don't Leave Me' by Pink, which I think kind of sounds like their relationship. A bit.

Warning: Massive angst and an extremely unhealthy relationship.

Disclaimer: I don't own Abby, Connor, or the quote from the song by Pink.

* * *

"_I forgot to say out loud how beautiful you really are to me. I can't be without, you're my perfect little punching bag..."_

o…o

The Cretaceous Period. Full of big dinosaurs and small ones all variously dangerous; the first early mammals, little ratlike nocturnal critters that rule the night; flying insects the size of hang-gliders; alien flowers and fruits; a landscape totally untouched and unspoiled by humanity shouldn't be conducive to the formation of a relationship, but somehow it works out that way anyway. It's a culmination of years of sexual tension—of both of them carefully dancing around on the edge of a romantic confession but never quite making it and sticking to it—and absolute necessity—the only two people on earth, one with a broken ankle who also happens to be the only one who knows how to get them home needs the other to look after him. They sleep together, curled up close together next to the fire for warmth, safety, security. They're the only thing each other has. Affection grows—or at least blossoms—out of mutual dependence, the necessity to be close together at all times because apart they're doomed.

It's there that the 'I love you's come and it's there where a relationship of sorts grows. Connor's heart does backflips when the affection is still there when they stumble into a lot surrounded by soldiers and the anomaly that brought them here closes behind them. It seems like things are finally working out, that she's not taking him for granted anymore. He moves back into the flat and the loft remains empty as he moves straight into her room and into her bed.

But eventually—perhaps inevitably—things change. Something in Abby's mind freezes, reverses. Things are different here than they were in the Cretaceous. When they were there, life was reduced to the absolute basic necessities: hunt, forage, keep the fire going, survive. In some ways it was less stressful. Now that they're back here, it's like she's self-conscious. Embarrassed? Uncertain? Scared? He doesn't know.

They fight, all the time, about everything. Sometimes it feels like she's picking on him, which for the most part he's used to because from the very start she's teased him and picked on him, but something is different about it now. It's not good-natured anymore—it feels deliberate, malicious, nasty.

She yells at him. Sometimes she hits him, though never as hard as he knows she can and somehow he thinks that makes it okay, even though everyone around him points out that if the roles were reversed, and he were a woman, he would be rescued and sent to a battered women's shelter. She's loving and wonderful, and then she's angry and yells; she tells him to keep his hands to himself when they're at work, and then turns around and is publicly and overtly affectionate where everyone can see them. She kicks him out of bed, she kicks him out of the _flat._ Then she takes him back with open arms and loving kisses and sincere apologies sighed in his ear in bed. Back and forth, hot and cold, just as much—if not _more—_a toy yo-yo for her now as he ever was before. He attributes it all to the stress of readjusting to the modern world and looking for Danny and anomaly work as a whole. He's so totally, utterly, devotedly in love with her that he can't bring himself to do anything about it. Like a dog, brutally beaten and completely defeated and broken down, he comes back to her with his tail between his legs. The more she abuses him, the more he craves her love and approval.

On and on, day after day, for more than a year.

Until one day she comes home and he's got his bags and boxes packed. Becker's offered him a place to stay before, time and again when she boots him out for a night or for a week, and this time he takes it indefinitely.

"I can't do this anymore," he tells her. It pains him to say it and that pain is clear in his voice and in his expressive, puppydog-big eyes.

"Connor, no."

"I can't let you treat me like this. You love me, you hate me. You can't kiss me one minute and kick me another. I love you but I don't think you love me."

She reaches a hand out to him and for the first time ever he recoils from her touch.

"I love you. Please," she begs.

He shakes his head. "No. I can't do this. You know where to find me if you want. I've gotta go."

Things go even more awkward, the tension between them palpable within the group. It fractures the team, makes them weaker.

For her part, Abby feels like a part of her has been cut off, ripped away. Without even realizing it—without intending or wanting it to happen—Connor Temple became a part of her life and a part of her _whole,_ before she even admitted she loved him. Without him there, she feels discombobulated, confused, disoriented. She's forgotten how to function without him in her life. She's totally dependent on him, which is exactly what she's been trying to prevent by being cruel to him and pushing him away but it happened long before she realized it. She's spent so much time and energy trying to prove to herself and him and everyone else that she _wants_ Connor, rather than _needs_ him, that she's forgotten to appreciate him. She doesn't know how to handle it. Love is alien to her.

She might not be ready and she might not be wholly emotionally stable but she has to go see him. It's cold. It's dark. It's raining. She stands shivering outside the door to the flat he's sharing with Becker.

"Abby—"

"Just listen," she begs, her voice small and piteous. She's grateful for the rain because it tracks down her cheeks and disguises her tears, but she thinks Connor can tell anyway. He knows her too well by now, better than she even knows herself. "I'm sorry. I know you don't believe me, but I'm sorry. I've been crap. I love you but I don't know how to handle it—I never loved anyone before in my life. I don't want to be dependent on you but I think I already am, and I have been for a long time."

"So you tried to push me away," he finishes for her.

She nods. "I'm scared. Please. I need you. Don't leave me."

"You say that, but how do I know you're not just gonna go off the deep end again and start hitting me?"

"You don't," she answers truthfully. "And neither do I. But I'm so totally stupid-in-love with you I can't even function. You have to have seen that, when we were trapped together."

"Things were different then. Between us."

"The way I acted. Not the way I felt. I have no excuses. If you want to hate me, I understand. I'm not gonna pretend I understand myself. But I love you—I've just… I gotta learn how to do it without the dinosaurs."

For a long, long time he just stands there, holding the door open and staring at her with his face stony and totally expressionless while she gets drenched and shivers violently in the heavy rain.

"You gonna let me in out of the rain?" She asks, forcing a smile.

After another hesitation, he does what he does all too often and what she doesn't deserve and what _she_ certainly never does for anyone else:

He opens the door.

And steps aside.

And lets her in.


End file.
